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Lecturer to Discuss Link Between Alzheimer’s and Smell

Wed March 5, 2014

There’s a common saying that if you can’t detect the smell of peanut butter or perhaps a lemon, then you might be at risk of losing your memory later in life.

As part of St. Lawrence University’s Annual Church Lecture in Neuroscience, Claire Murphy, professor of psychology at San Diego State University, will discuss whether the loss of smell is, in fact, an indicator of Alzheimer’s disease. Murphy’s lecture, sponsored by the Richard D. Church Lectureship Endowment, will take place at 7:30 p.m. March 20, in the Hepburn Hall Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Murphy’s research interests center on the relationship of the brain to behavior. She has also studies how the brain changes when we are hungry. The techniques used in her laboratory range from neuropsychological and psychophysical testing to recording the brain’s event-related potentials and functional MRI.

According to Dana Professor of Biology David Hornung, there is particular interest in neurodegenerative diseases, for example in Alzheimer’s disease and Down syndrome, and the effects on sensory and cognitive function in the brain.